Actress Ham So-won, Chinese SNS heartthrob prepare to tie knot
Ham So-won and Jin Hua in their wedding photo. / Capture from Naver Blog
By Ko Dong-hwan
South Korean actress Ham So-won has had wedding photos taken with her boyfriend, a Chinese social media heartthrob. Their wedding is expected to be held this summer.
The actress, 42, registered to marry Jin Hua, 24, in January at the Uiwang City Office in Gyeonggi Province. They will have ceremonies in South Korea and China.
Reports said Ham met Jin at her friend's birthday party in September and announced they were in a serious relationship the next month. Jin told a South Korean TV entertainment news show on SBS Tuesday that he thought she was in her late 20s when he first saw her.
“On the day we first met, he asked me if he can take care of me,” Ham said on the SBS show. “I thought he was joking. We dated every day for a month. He then proposed to me. I accepted.”
But their parents at first opposed the marriage plans. Jin's parents, who operate a large farm in Harbin, threatened to disown him, but Jin did not give up his relationship.
“I visited his parents,” Ham said. “They saw me and it didn't take long for them to tell us to break up.” She said it nearly made her give up the relationship.
When Jin visited Ham's parents, however, she changed her mind after he told them he would “be responsible for everything” and “wants to marry her as soon as possible.”
Jin, a former Idol trainee, has over 200,000 Weibo followers.
Before her romance with Jin, Ham dated Chinese millionaire Zhang Wei, who reports said was one of the eight richest up-and-coming businessmen in China. Ham began dating him in 2010.
She said on a tvN TV talk show in May 2017 that on their first date, Wei, who owned seven supercars, brought three of them for her to ride in. He also took her to a Chinese temple on his personal jet and rented a luxury spa for three days to celebrate her birthday.
“For three years, he had his chauffeur check my refrigerator every morning and replenish it in the afternoon,” Ham said. “He always told me to use his chauffeur whenever I went out. The chauffeur then reported to him everything I did. Since he knew my whereabouts, even when he didn't see me, things got dry between us and the chemistry just blew.”
When they broke up, Wei wanted to give her several properties, including land in China's Shanxi Province and a high-class apartment in Beijing. She reportedly took the apartment.